Sohlman stood up. With some difficulty he unrolled a map and fastened it to the wall. It was a map of the beach at Gustavs and the surrounding area. Sohlman wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and pointed out the scene of the crime.
“This is where the body was found. The tracks show that the victim walked in this direction along the shore. Then she must have turned around and walked back the same way. At the other end of the beach, meaning where she started out, the grass has been trampled down. It looks as if that’s where he stood waiting for her. He may have known which way she would walk and then intercepted her before she could reach the road. There are no tire tracks, so the killer must have been on foot. He most likely murdered her there. The bloodstains on the ground indicate as much. Then he dragged the body over to the grove.”
“What about the dog?” asked Karin Jacobsson.
“It must have been disposed of first. According to the boyfriend, it was an alert and excellent watchdog, who always kept close to Helena, ready to protect her. The dog was struck on the head and the neck with an axe. The head was practically severed. One paw was also chopped off. We can only wonder why.”
The others stirred uneasily. Jacobsson grimaced.
“How many people knew she was here on the island?” asked Norrby.
“About thirty or so, if I’ve counted correctly,” said Jacobsson as she leafed through her notes. “Her family, her work colleagues and a couple of friends in Stockholm, her friend Emma Winarve, the closest neighbors, and the people who were at the party, of course.”
“What leads you to believe that it could be the boyfriend?” Wittberg asked, turning to the prosecuting attorney.
“A fight erupted between him and Helena at the party, and it ended with him slapping her,” replied Smittenberg. “He was jealous. She was apparently dancing with an old school friend, Kristian Nordstrom. In Bergdal’s view, Kristian was groping Helena, and she let him do it. He pulled Helena outside, they started fighting, and he slapped her. He in turn was scratched and bitten by Helena. The fight lasted only a couple of minutes. Then Nordstrom came out to talk to Bergdal, and he got punched, too. The other friends intervened, so it never turned into a real fistfight. They say that everything was calm when they left the house. Bergdal was asleep, and Helena had also gone to bed and was even lying next to him. The most serious strikes against him are that he was the last one to see her alive and the fact that they had a fight on the night preceding the murder. I view that as sufficient grounds for arrest, as things now stand. On the other hand, in order to charge him with a crime, I need something more. If you don’t come up with any new evidence, such as some sort of forensic proof, we’ll have to let him go. You’ve got two days.”
“What do we know about Helena?” asked Jacobsson. “What was her life like?”
Knutas glanced down at his notebook. “Helena seems to have led an ordinary life. She was born on July 5, 1966, so she was thirty-four years old. She would have been thirty-five next month. Born and raised on Gotland. Her whole family moved to Stockholm in 1986, when Helena was twenty. They kept the summer cabin near Frojel, and they came to stay here several times a year. They used to spend every summer here. She was educated in computer science at Stockholm University, and she has worked for a computer company for the past three years. She had lots of friends. Before Bergdal, she seems not to have had any long-term love relationships. Never married or engaged. According to Bergdal, she once had something going with this Kristian who was at the party. That might also be complete nonsense. The boyfriend suffers from jealousy, as you know. None of the friends has been able to confirm that the story was true, and surely at least one of them ought to know something about it. We haven’t been able to interview Nordstrom yet because he flew to Copenhagen the day after the party. That’s where his parents live. I’ve talked to him on the phone, and he’s flying back here tomorrow.”
“Does Helena Hillerstrom have any kind of record?” asked Wittberg.
“No. The question now is how we should proceed. We’ll conduct more interviews with the people who were at the party. Above all, I want to talk to Kristian Nordstrom. Someone needs to go over to Stockholm and interview Helena’s family, colleagues, friends, and other people she knew. We should do that as soon as possible. We need to keep working with an open mind. It’s not at all certain that Bergdal is the killer. If he’s not the one, then we don’t know whether the murderer is on the island or whether he followed her here from the mainland. Or whether it’s someone she didn’t even know, someone she met by chance.”
“I’d be happy to go to Stockholm,” said Jacobsson. “We need to talk to the people she knew as quickly as possible. I can leave this afternoon.”
“Take someone with you. There’s a lot to be done in Stockholm, and plenty of people to interview. I’m sure you’ll have the assistance of the National Criminal Police over there, but I think two of you should go.”
“I’ll go,” said Wittberg.
Jacobsson gave him a grateful smile. “All right, that’s decided, then. By the way, we’re waiting to hear back from SCL. In the meantime, we need to map out Helena’s circle of acquaintances here on the island. Who did she spend time with when she was here? Aside from her best friend. We need to do another round of interviews with the neighbors. I’ll conduct a more intensive interview with Emma Winarve. What did Helena do on the days preceding the murder? Conversations on her cell phone? E-mail messages? The boyfriend says that they switched off their cell phones as soon as they got off the ferry. How do we go about searching for her clothes? We need to expand the area around the crime scene, both in terms of searching the area and talking to the neighbors. Those are what I see as the most pressing matters right now. Any comments?” Knutas concluded.
No one had any objections, and so the tasks were divided up.
After a late lunch, Johan and Peter went to the police station to do a supplemental interview with the superintendent. They wanted to have the new information about the dog confirmed before the story for the evening news was edited.
Pulling open the glass door to the criminal department, Johan collided with a woman. She had shoulder-length sand-colored hair and dark eyes that glared at them. She said a curt hello and then walked away down the corridor with her bag over her shoulder-tall and attractive, wearing washed-out jeans and cowboy boots.
“Who was that?” asked Johan even before greeting Knutas.
“A friend of the murder victim,” replied the inspector briefly. “Come in.”
Knutas sat down heavily behind his desk and said wearily, “So, what is it you want now? I’m very busy.”
Johan dropped into one of the visitors’ chairs. He chose to get right to the point.
“Why haven’t you said anything about the dog?”
Knutas’s expression didn’t change. “What dog?”
“The killer chopped off the head of the girl’s dog. It was found right near the body.”
Red patches appeared on Knutas’s neck. “I can’t confirm that.”
“What conclusions have you come to, based on this information?”
“Since I can neither confirm nor deny what you’ve said, I can’t offer any conclusions, either.”
“We’ve now heard from two different sources that she was killed with an axe. That part has already come out, and it’s in all the newspapers. Wouldn’t it be just as well for you to confirm it?”
“It doesn’t matter how many sources you have, I’m not saying anything regarding the investigation. You’ll just have to accept that,” said Knutas, controlling his impatience.